Free, I've been thinking along the same lines for a couple of years. The question is whether it would be more effective to try to change the GOP or look for/start something else. The Libertarian party is so out in left field (and I believe that is the correct direction) on foreign affairs that they are useless. What are your thoughts?

I liked it better when the Democrats pretended not to be full-blown Communists and the Republicans pretended to be fiscally conservative.

I consider myself a Libertarian and a Conservative. I no longer call myself a Republican. If truly conservative Republicans (those in the Liberty Caucus) could build a platform with the Libertarians, they could create a viable Conservative Party.

Free0352: If you really believe "Exactly the same. No difference." you need to see a wig picker.BigD: I'd say we are in nearly 100%agreement.I think most agree that it will take a very strong leader of a coalition of factions to defeat the Marxocrats. Each faction needs to bring in more votes than it drives into the other camp. The national platform should be limited to sound economic and national security policies together with a smaller, less intrusive government generally.Free0352 and his fellow Libertarians need to get rid of the idiotic Ron Paul foreign policy ideas to be part of the coalition. If they do not do so, they will never advance their agenda.I think that the abortion issue has been a big looser for the Republicans. Free0352 was completely correct several weeks ago. I think that the Republicans should jettison the issue nationally, substituting the position that it should be a state issue debated at that level. That way, the Republicans could sweep in people of both persuasions.By the way, does anyone know by how much we would have to reduce the level of social security and Medicare payments to make those programs sustainable without raising taxes? Bram?As JFK said, “A rising tide lifts all boats”. CrabbyOldMan adds “A falling tide drops all boats”.

Here's a start for what Republicans can do. Stop being identical to Democrats.

Read em' and weep Crabby, they voted for and gave Barack Obama everything he wanted and more in trade for a massive list of goodies and pork. THEY WANT TO BE IN THE MINORITY because when you are in the majority you have to do the giving and when in the minority you get to do the receiving. The GOP is corrupt, twisted, and rotten. I said so four years ago and nothing has changed. The votes stand for themselves. All their supposed wrangling exists only so that they can through a kind of political extortion suck more pork out of the Democrat majority in government. The GOP uses its slim hold on the House only to line its pockets. Quit this self flagellation and abandon this sinking ship. The less powerful the GOP is, the better off everyone will be. It provides no opposition to the Democrats anyway. Even ten men provides a better political defense against the Progressives as the GOP provides none, and is in fact in collusion.

Free0352:I agree that the Republicans need different leadership.Unless the planets all align perfectly, the risks of trying to put together a third party outweigh the probable gain.I favor a T Party like movement aimed at gaining control of the Republican coalition from within.It IS all about winning the election. Tantrums and sulking about real or imagined past slights have no place.OF COURSE there is corruption among Republicans. Power corrupts. Do you think that the Founding Fathers may have favored limited government so that the corruption would be correspondingly limited?Who do you think would give us less corruption, the big government Chicagocrats or the Republicans, even under their current leadership?

The Tea Party tried and it failed and your beloved Mitt Romney abd his establishment fools along with all of you who blindly supported them did the killing of it. You favor a strategy dependant on a ghost. The Libertarians are happy to have you and will listen. The GOP ignores you and goes about lining its pockets deaf to your objections. And why not? All their party elections are rigged anyway.

At what point did any political party not have to compromise? Even if the libertarians came into power, they'd be tasked with accomplishing things that would require votes from the other political parties.

I don't think the problem with Republicans is their lack of intransigence -- honestly I think the problem is the opposite. Had they compromised earlier, they could have gotten significant entitlement reform.

Instead they backed themselves into a corner where they'd be labeled the party of obstruction yet again, and they likely would have been repudiated at the polls yet again. I understand that unyielding principles is what you guys want -- but you need to understand that in a two party system, that use bicameral legislative system compromise is necessary to accomplish anything.

GOD DAMN IT BE THE PARTY OF OBSTRUCTION! Negotiation comes through strength, not the babbling weakness of that spray-tanned, crying woman who spends more time negotiating with himself than this President! Democrats respect political force and brinkmanship and nothing less. Go over the cliff, quit digging the debt hole and for the love of god BACK OBAMA into a corner for once!

I don't mind compromise when the overall accomplishment is the benefit of all. In this case, the Republicans should have let it burn. There is no good scenario that the Democrats will sign on to and the Democrats don't deserve the cover of bipartisanship. But the Republicans are cowards.

I absolutely agree with Free0352 that the best strategy is "GOD DAMN IT BE THE PARTY OF OBSTRUCTION!" at this stage.The job going forward is that of putting together a winning coalition.Most success stories involve prior failures, often multiple prior failures, so I am not yet willing to write off the Tea Party.I will always follow Bill Buckley's advice and vote for the most conservative ELECTABLE candidate.The Marxocrats have been very successful at divide and conquer so far. Free0352 and his fellows have fallen right into step as planned. Unfortunately for all of us, the Marxocrats will give them nothing in return.

Nit:The last one I saw indicated a majority did not want more gun laws because they realize they don't work. They want armed guards (faulty or cops) in schools, as in New York.Your response to Free0352 is laughable.

Free0352:And you won't get anything. There won't be enough of you to take anything until you espouse positions the majority buys. Besides, most people (same as you) have a real problem caving to blackmailers. That whole concept is as futile as Kamikaze attacks. I'm glad that you don't mind suffering. I hope you don’t mind loosing either.

Nit:Gerrymandering absolutely occurs. That and ballot box stuffing has been of great benefit to Minnesota Marxocrats.I'm sure both are very helpfull to the Gimmedats (I wish I had thought of that one!) in other blue states too.

Republicans control 30 of the 50 governor positions and 25 of the state legislative branches outright, and 8 are mixed. Democrats only control 17 of the states legislative branches. Are you really in the position to claim that they aren't currently benefiting from redistricting?

The dominance of Republicans at the state level has nothing to do with redistricting. Conservatives are high information voters, and vote in all elections, including their state elections. The low-information city Democrat only votes for the people he or she hears about in the national news. So more federal elections go to the Democrats and more local elections to the Republicans. It's not rocket science.

But speaking of redistricting, you should see Sheila Jackson Lee's district. It's a gerrymandered monstrosity entrenching a Democrat of unsurpassed stupidity and low performance. And the Democrats can't even primary her out of there.

I chuckled at your high information assertion. Is that why all of the survey indicate that Democrats are better educated than Republicans? I agree that Republicans tend to show up more for local elections -- but I frankly don't think most people understand how this impacts the national political landscape.

I never stated that the reason that Republicans dominate at the state level was redistricting. I did claim that is why they continue to control the house of Representatives.

Further adding evidence to my assertion that you are an uninformed voter, I don't think you understand how gerrymandering works. The idea is that you provide the most districts with significant, but not overwhelming majorities, while putting your opponent party in fewer districts that have overwhelming majorities of their party members. This allows to control a legislature as a party with a minority number of voters.

Given that Republicans control both branches of the legislature in Texas, I'd wager this is an attempt to put a huge number of Democrat voters into a single district and keep them from impacting close elections.

Is that why all of the survey indicate that Democrats are better educated than Republicans?

What surveys? Republicans are better educated in civics than their Democrat counterparts. This is the only thing that explains their level of participation in all levels of elections, but if you want to see some dumb "survey" instead of using your own brain, then here you go:

I like how they try to dance around the fact that conservative Republicans beat everyone. :-)

I agree that Republicans tend to show up more for local elections -- but I frankly don't think most people understand how this impacts the national political landscape.

You mean you don't think most DEMOCRATS understand how this impacts the national political landscape. Frankly, I don't think most people know that states even have governments. They just do what the press and their celebrity idols tell them to do and then wonder like idiots why their taxes have gone up.

Further adding evidence to my assertion that you are an uninformed voter, I don't think you understand how gerrymandering works.

Oh Boo Boo, it's so funny when you try to think. You have a vague idea of how gerrymandering works in general, but you don't know how it works in Texas or other individual states.

Given that Republicans control both branches of the legislature in Texas, I'd wager this is an attempt to put a huge number of Democrat voters into a single district and keep them from impacting close elections.

You'd lose. It's actually very difficult for Republicans to gerrymander in TX or the South. The federal government decided that the Southern states must submit any redistricting plans to the federal courts for approval so that they would not disenfranchise minority voters.

The gerrymandered districts in Texas were created by Democrats in the '80s so they could have as many safe districts as possible, taking advantage of the federal willingness to approve districts catering to their newfound minority voting bloc. And sadly, but not unexpectedly, the safest Democrat districts in Texas are cesspools of corruption and minority poverty.

But the Texas legislature is dominated by Republicans because a straight up majority voted for them. They have no advantages from redistricting because they haven't been allowed to do it.

Nit:You ask "Also, who was the one that claimed that I don't argue with facts?"I think you are talking about me.In order to argue with facts, you have to be able to draw valid conclusions from those facts.You said "Republicans control 30 of the 50 governor positions and 25 of the state legislative branches outright and 8 are mixed. Democrats only control 17 of the state’s legislative branches. Are you really in the position to claim that they aren't currently benefiting from redistricting?"Could the differences come from the Republicans fielding better candidates and espousing sounder policies than the gimmiedats? I guess we can't expect any better from you. The gimmiedats use that same (invalid) argument all the time to “prove” their grievances. After all, the only explanation for their being so few female customers and so many male customers in strip clubs must be the result of discrimination against women.Idiot!

Are the sounder policies and better candidates why they got killed in this election?

No. They got killed because of low information Democrat voters who are still enamored with Obama's celebrity endorsements. If redistricting benefitted Republicans in local elections, it would benefit them in national elections. But it doesn't. Republicans are just more likely to vote in local elections because they just understand our system of government and the low information Obama voters don't.

Evidence that we live in a celebrity obsessed culture that knows far more of Boo Boo and far less of civics?Evidence that Obama had a steady supply of them shaking their moneymakers for him? Are you handicapped in some way that you can't draw a logical conclusion?

And I assume you are conceding that you are spanked on the question of redistricting.